


Return

by Nochi



Series: It Wasn't My Idea [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, campaign 1 spoilers, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 05:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16758436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nochi/pseuds/Nochi
Summary: Old friends arrive when you least expect them.





	Return

**Author's Note:**

> During the lead-up to the first Vecna fight the Discord server I'm in was musing about "what if he brought Tibs back just to fuck with them". Then this happened. Super-short but also written just as the episode was starting that night.

They haven’t lost yet. It’s a hair's breadth away, but they haven’t lost yet. It’s a dark and vile magic shooting through the air all around them, screams of the undead surrounding them as they make their last stand against the Undying King. 

And then, a slithering voice from behind them, clearly from a distance but also unsettlingly intimate in Keyleth ear: “Hello, Princess.”

She whirls, staff held outward, trying to search for the source while maintaining concentration on the shield she’s keeping over their ranged fighters.

“Fight’s this way!” Percy’s voice is terse, tense, and she understands his irritation but also she has to know, that couldn’t possibly have been….but could it?

“Light!” She’s blinded suddenly, a nearby stone the target of the spell, glowing brilliantly behind her.

“Keyleth what the hell, are you trying to give us away?!” Vex darts out of range of the light on her broom, trying to find a place within Keyleth’s shield that’s still shadowed.

“It wasn’t me!” she protests, blinking away halos and peering out into what, impossibly, seems an even deeper darkness than before.

A figure steps forward. She gasps, and with a muttered curse Percy whirls around, aiming his gun in the direction she’s staring, frozen. But then he freezes too, as the tattered robes come into view. The face that follows is familiar, but battered, grey and more scaleless patches than not, one skeletal hand gripping a splintering staff. 

“It can’t be,” Percy whispers, gun dropping to his side.

“Oh, but it is.” The face comes fully into the light and Keyleth lets out a gasping sob. “Tiberius Stormwind. Of Thar Amphala.”


End file.
